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Today’s book review article is about book on Marketing Aptitude subject, which helps you fetch high marks and help you qualify the coveted Banking exams. This book is also very suitable for other Competitive exams where Marketing Aptitude subject is included. I am going to talk about Handbook on Marketing Awareness book released by IBC Academy Publications, which is a must have book for the serious candidates who wish to master the subject with its comprehensive coverage. The book is compiled with all important topics frequently asked in the coveted exams.

Handbook-on-Marketing-Awareness

Price: The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 185.

The syllabus of Banking sector, specially SBI Bank P.O. and Clerks examination has been changing in the recent times and the recent trends indicate increasing focus on knowledge and awareness about marketing of financial products, especially looking to the fierce competition in the Banking sector amongst Indian, Private and Foreign sector Banks in India. The employers expect the aspiring candidates to possess the basic knowledge of marketing concepts and skill-sets so as they can face the challenges posed by Modern Private and Foreign sector Banks as well as to contribute effectively to the all-round growth of the organization.

Aspirants for a career in the banking sector have to sit for job recruitment exams conducted by SBI, IBPS or individual banks. Whether they are taking Bank P.O. or Clerical post exams, candidates are expected to possess good knowledge of business and marketing of banking products and services.

marketing-strategy

5 reasons why should you buy IBCA’s Handbook on Marketing Awareness :

Most comprehensive and accurate information on the subject.

Unlike others, IBCA book on Marketing Awareness is written by an Ex-Banker with 26 years of experience and who joined SBI group as a Probationary Officer (PO).

The book is updated continuously and what you get is most updated topics.

The Book has over 1050 MCQs to prepare you for the most of the competitive exams. with Marketing Aptitude as a subject.

The content of the Book is very useful for Group discussions/Personal Interviews also.

IBC Academy also publishes Hindi edition of the book, titled Vipanan Jagrukta Darpan. These books are undoubtedly the most comprehensive and widely read books on the subject available in the market.

Vipanan-Jagrukta-Darpan

Price: The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 195.

The Book covers topics which are most frequently asked in the banking and other similar competitive exams.

CHAPTER -1 : INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING

CHAPTER -2 : MARKETING ENVIRONMENT

CHAPTER -3 : MARKETING MIX

CHAPTER -4 : ADVERTISING

CHAPTER -5 : BRANDING & PACKING

CHAPTER -6 : PRICING DECISIONS

CHAPTER -7 : MARKETING CHANNEL & DISTRIBUTION

CHAPTER -8 : Market Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning

CHAPTER -9 : PERSONAL SELLING & SALES MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER -10 : SALES PROMOTION

CHAPTER -11 : CONSUMER PROTECTION

CHAPTER -12 : MARKETING OF BANK PRODUCT & SERVICES

CHAPTER -13 : ABBREVIATION: MARKETING TERMS

CHAPTER -14: GLOSSARY OF MARKETING TERMINOLOGY

CHAPTER -15: MODEL PRACTICE TESTS AND ANSWERS

Content of the book is exhaustive and explained in very lucid terms to help you understand the concepts. Half-baked knowledge could be dangerous. Instead of going out for short-cuts and cheap booklets to prepare for this subject, I recommend to give the focus the subject deserve ; spare some time and prepare well with this widely acclaimed book. The coverage of the book is exhaustive and very relevant for the Banking sector exams.

The Objective Type Questions section also contains a set of 30 papers comprising of 1050 Multiple Choice Questions. This help the candidates prepare for various banking exams conducted by the IBPS and other institutions like SBI etc.

The Book is written in a clear and lucid style, focusing on the important points and concepts that candidates need to understand in order to get a good score in the exam.

About Author

N K Gupta is an experienced Banking Sector professional with over 26 years of experience. He has also written other books like Handbook on Banking Awareness, Handbook On Computer Awareness , Cracking the Job Interviews… and many more.

N K Gupta is a management graduate. He is a senior ex-banker with over two and a half decades of experience of working in the Banking industry. He started his career as a Probationary Officer in the State Bank Group.

About IBC Academy

IBC Academy Publications specializes in publication of quality books for Banking sector. IBCA books are rich in content and quality and updated periodically, to ensure that the candidates get the top quality book, which make them succeed in coveted competitive exams.

You can buy books online at booknest.in and avail of fabulous discounts ranging from 30% – 40%.

Today’s book review article is about book on Computer Awareness subject, which is top in fetching marks and help you score higher and qualify the coveted Banking exams. I am going to talk about Handbook on Computer Awareness book released by IBC Academy Publications, which is a must have book for the serious candidates who wish to master the subject with its comprehensive coverage and virtually no error in content or typing. The book is compiled with all important topics frequently asked in the coveted exams.

Handbook-on-Computer-Awareness

Price: The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 185.

The use of computer technology in banking has increased in the recent times. Computer-aided technology in banking, such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), Core Banking Solutions (CBS), Modern Payment Banking solutions and Advanced Risk Management Solutions, have proven immensely convenient for the customers and transformational for the Banks. The various bank recruitment examinations are now reflecting the modern trend of computer-integrated banking by testing aspirants with a significant number of questions on computer awareness.

Many other recruitment exams conducted by bodies such as LIC-AAO, SSC and Railways also devote significant number of questions towards computer awareness. The students preparing for those exams can benefit greatly as well.

Aspirants for a career in the banking sector have to sit for job recruitment exams conducted by the IBPS or individual banks. Whether they are taking Bank P.O. or Clerical post exams, candidates are expected to possess good knowledge of Computers.

5 reasons why you should buy only IBCA Book on Computer Awareness :

Most comprehensive and accurate information on the subject.

Unlike others, IBCA book on Computer Awareness is written by an Ex-Banker with 26 years of experience and who joined SBI group as a Probationary Officer (PO).

The book is updated continuously and what you get is most updated topics.

The Book has over 1500 MCQs which prepares you for the most of the competitive exams. with Computer Aptitude as a subject.

The content of the Book is very useful for Group discussions/Personal Interviews also.

IBC Academy also publishes Hindi edition of the book, titled Computer Jagrukta Darpan. These books are undoubtedly the most comprehensive and widely read books on the subject available in the market.

Computer-Jagrukta-Darpan

Price: The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 195.

Beginning with a description on the history of computers, the handbook provides an introduction to computers and explains the various components that constitute it. It then explains the different software and hardware elements that constitute a computer and are responsible for its functioning. It also explains the Internet and computer networks and how to prevent and cure Trojans, Worms, and Viruses. The last few chapters of the book explain Microsoft Office and its shortcuts, the different computer terms generally encountered, and questions and answers of the objective-type.

The Book covers topics which are most frequently asked in the banking and other similar competitive exams.

The Objective Type Questions section contains a set of 52 papers comprising of 1050 Multiple Choice Questions. This help the candidates prepare for all the different bank exams conducted by the IBPS and various institutions like RBI and SBI. The coverage of the study material is exhaustive.

The Book is written in a clear and lucid style, focusing on the important points and concepts that candidates need to understand in order to get a good score in the exam.

About Author

N. K. Gupta is an experienced Banking Sector professional with over 26 years of experience. He has also written other books like Handbook on Marketing Awareness, Handbook On computer Awareness , Cracking the Job Interviews… and many more.

N. K. Gupta is a management graduate. He is a senior ex-banker with over two and a half decades of experience of working in the Banking industry. He started his career as a Probationary Officer in the State Bank Group.

About IBC Academy

IBC Academy Publications books are rich in content and quality and updated periodically, to ensure that the candidates get the top quality book, which make them succeed in coveted competitive exams. In addition, the books also contain an exhaustive 1150 plus Multiple choice questions, on the pattern of various exams. conducted by the Banking & Financial sector Institutions.

You can buy books online at booknest.in and avail of fabulous discounts ranging from 30% – 40%.

Indian consumers are mostly driven by mouth-watering discounts, Free Delivery option and east returns. Buyers too are looking forward for bargains to buy the best brands for the least price. Is this situation real?

Why some reputed brand or established player would like to underm

ine its brand and quality product and offer you at unheard of prices. What do they gain by doing so?

The marketplace model of web-portals have a compulsive reason to come out with fabulous offers consistently, though on the select range of products, in order to lure customers on their sites and retain their interest for them to re-visit the website and make purchases impulsively. Online buying is infectious and addictive. Mobiles with high internet speed have opened a whole new horizon for online players and traffic growth has grown manifold in last one-two years.

Amazon and Flipkart, two large online players started their venture with selling Books online which later diversified with multi-product portals on Marketplace model. Now, they no longer sell directly to their customers but with the help of thousands of third-party sellers registered with them. Some of these sellers do have privileged selling arrangement with them and they act as their instruments to influence markets with higher discounts, sale offers, cash back bargains and other means to offer incentives, with a view to retain customers with them for longer periods.

The marketplace model entail these Third party sellers to pay a fixed percentage of commission and administration charges, payment Gateway charges to receive payments online and Shipment charges for each transaction executed. These are the main source of direct earnings for a marketplace. In all, the commission payable ranges between 15% -22%, excluding the shipment costs.

While the Marketplace expects these sellers to offer optimum discounts to customers and compete with peer web-portals, the Sellers are not amused looking to hefty commissions payable and other unforeseen incidental payments, such as shipment charges on returns etc. Often you find that, of late, books sold on these marketplaces are at MRP or at a nominal 3%-7% discounts. Many of the third party sellers usually stop selling after some time for reasons such as, lower profitability, not enough orders coming their way or disputes with marketplace.

On the contrary, there is enough life at niche players who sale single or limited product on their web-portals under Inventory-led model and deliver products themselves. As such you are assured of the quality and prices. They offer you a host of other benefits such as better shopping experience, greater discounts and personalized service.

booknest – a books mega mall online

Look at the select 5 reasons why you should avoid buying books from marketplaces

1. Substandard or Unscrupulous Sellers making a killing on the marketplace websites:

The maddening rush and competition amongst the large marketplaces have led to registration of unscrupulous players too, whose intentions have always been doubtful. These merchants sell anything to everything online, such as garments, cosmetics, books, kitchen-wares and anything they could lay their hands on.

They engage in questionable practices and manipulate the system to their benefit. In some cases, customers have ordered a book but received another book and their refund requests were also not entertained.

Though, the marketplace have a system to rate these sellers on a pre-determined scale, such as 4.3, 3.2, 2.1 etc. But, unfortunately they do not blacklist them, but still allow a Seller with worst rating of say, 3.1 to sell products online. As a result, the customers get cheated and the complaints have grown exponential in recent times.

Read below some honest reviews and feedback taken from some popular e-commerce website:

Sent a totally different book (After Empire by Dilip Hiro) and took 2 weeks to deliver. Totally not trustworthy. – Buyer A

MRP of the book is Rs. 80. He blackened the MRP and then sold it on xxxxxxxxxxx of Rs.150. I have the necessary details /pictures if needed. – Buyer B

Pathetic seller. I ordered Non-linear systems by khalil, I recieved some other book Scrum which looks used. Order was shipped late. – Buyer C

xxxxxxxx seller do not understand English. First time they sent second hand/Used book, When I requested replacement, they sent different book. Avoid! – Buyer D

2. Manipulation in Prices and discounts is rampant on marketplace websites:

Tampering of MRP on products is one of the most common practices to deceive online consumers. The products would be shown with hefty discounts after their MRP have been hugely inflated. The customers often take this granted when they buy on a reputed web-portal, ignoring the fact that they are buying from a small retailer in Chandni chowk at Delhi or a non-descript shopkeeper from Crawford market in Mumbai.

I have come across one such incidence on a popular web-portal which is overwhelming. MRP of a book is manipulated to as high as Rs. 1,863 and is offered with a discount of 86% at Rs. 250. The actual price of the book is Rs. 250 and as such no discount in real sense is given. Is this an innovative pricing strategy, an act of deception or fraud with customer or a method to amuse the customer… you decide for yourself.

Let me tell you that this is not an isolated incidence but there are 000’s of products whose prices are artificially inflated with a purpose to outsmart the general consumers.

3. Quality of book is often heavily compromised:

A new trend is emerging on the marketplace model. The sale of old and new books are allowed simultaneously on the web-portal. You get hefty discounts and later came to know that what you got is not a mint condition new book but a used one.

Besides, several sellers have been aggressively selling pirated books on these web-portals. You may recall buying a pirated book at 1/5th of the MRP on the street of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata. You may also wonder that most of those vendors have since vanished or perished and are no longer seen on the streets. Why? Most of these pirated books are now available on popular web-portals at hefty discounts. So, next time when you place order for a bestseller book, take a look on the seller and the copy of the book you receive.

4. You are lured with heavy discounts on Old edition books:

Marketplaces have become a preferred platform for the Publishers and Distributors to get rid of their dead stock and old edition books. The consumers are looking for a bargain and they give what others are looking forward to. Limited period offers come handy and they have to announce mouth-watering discounts. Customers lap onto these as if there is no tomorrow. Bingo… Their stocks are cleared in a weeks’ time.
5. Third-party Sellers cannot offer better pricing to consumers and still remain profitable

Marketplace portals are a great level playing field and many instances are seen when even a Publisher is not the bestseller for their own titles. Many other small Sellers have seen to be offering substantially higher discounts than the Publishers?? I trust, by now you know the reasons for such bonanzas..
It is better for us to appreciate the fact that no seller can offer great discounts on marketplace portal, after paying hefty commissions and other charges and remain profitable.

I recommend that you shall now start comparing prices of books with other specialized niche web-portals and I am sure you would be impressed with the fact that their discounts are often much higher. As they also deliver the books themselves, chances are that the packaging and delivery experience would be much more satisfying that third-party sellers on marketplaces.

Dear Online Buyers, Please think…

Who is paying for your offers or discounts? Please note, that to change your online purchasing behavior, habits or addictions, eCommerce Marketplace web-portals are just racing to capture the marketshare to get more online buyers, increase their buying trends, capture all your shopping data only to raise the next billion dollars from venture funds. Are you in game for this?

According to the FDI policy guidelines, “Marketplace model of e-commerce means providing of an information technology platform by an e-commerce entity on a digital and electronic network to act as a facilitator between buyer and seller.”

The main feature of the Marketplace model is that the e-commerce firm, like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc. provide a platform for customers to interact with a large number of sellers onboard to buy a product online. Thus, when a product from amazon is bought, you are actually buying it from a registered seller with it. As such the product is not directly sold by amazon. Here, amazon is just a website platform which facilitates a meeting place for a consumer to meets a large number of seller and offer various options and price levels for a product or service.

According to the FDI policy guidelines, “Inventory model of ecommerce means an ecommerce activity where inventory of goods and services is owned by the e-commerce entity and is sold to the consumers directly.” The main feature of inventory model is that the customer buys the product directly from the e-commerce firm. As such, inventory management, logistics etc. are solely managed by the e-commerce entity.

A Marketplace website offers enormous range of products with multiple sellers at their platform which offers delight and higher satisfaction to the consumer. He may re-visit, again and again to buy other or similar products, if the website has offered him a satisfying buying experience. The options thus offered are enormous.

Whereas the Inventory-led websites have specialized but limited product range and the serious customers may log in to these website for a specific product range, such as caratlane.com for precious jewellery, booknest.in to buy books, swiggy.com for ordering food, 1mg.com for medicines etc.

Most of the marketplace players have anchor sellers on panel, who are either their subsidiary entities or a large enterprise who have entered into privileged deals with them which helps them offer great deals or discounts to the customers. This may include a higher discount on products, FREE shipping, compensation for sales returns etc. The losses incurred on these deals /services are compensated by the Marketplace Player under a pre-agreed arrangement.

As per the amended laws, it was made very clear that marketplaces shouldn’t influence pricing, directly or indirectly. Thus, it would not be legal for marketplaces to give discounts now. In the light of this, such opaque arrangements with these anchor sellers are contrary to the prevailing rules of the land.

You often find that some products are available on the website at 40% -60% discounts which is even hard for the manufacturer to offer. You often find that there are 40-50 sellers for a book online sold but excepting one anchor seller, no one is able to offer such exciting discounts or offers. They even mask other seller completely and corner almost entire demand for these products, thereby also frustrate these multiple genuine sellers to reach the customers with their honest pricing offers.

These bargain offers are made possible through these Anchor sellers while the losses are funded by the Marketplace player. May be one can feel this practice offensive for other registered sellers as being unduly skewed against them.

Business Model and Bottomless Pit

A marketplace recovers commission and administrative costs amounting to nearly 15% to 20% for the services rendered from Sellers. Besides, some large players also generate revenue through advertisements on their websites. Many large players have started recovering the advertisement & publicity costs incurred from the Sellers, during the Special Offer/Seasons sale announced.

Notwithstanding, one often wonder at the bottomless pit of these players who have been able to remain in business despite incurring huge losses ranging between Rs.1,500 crores to Rs.2,500 crores year after year. All these marketplace players have raised enormous funds from Investors and these funds are utilized for subsidizing offers besides meeting advertising & publicity, Logistics costs besides meeting enormous administrative costs.

The hypothesis that volume of business is anticipated to grow significantly in a few years from now to help the commission revenue to grow significantly to cover their costs and help them revenue positive is far-fetched. Amazon has though envisaged a 7-year time horizon to achieve revenue positive sales volumes.

Buyers Delight Vs Sellers plight

In marketplace model, Buyers delight comes at the cost of enormous misery of the sellers. A seller is required to offer best deal to consumers and also share exorbitant 20% plus rate of commission to the Marketplace entity. Besides, they have to bear complete logistics cost which often are not fully or partially passed on to the customer.

The fierce competition has led these sellers to work on wafer-thin margins which often get eroded with increased sales returns and the associated costs with it.

On today’s Marketplaces in India, sellers are mostly individuals or small businesses, selling at thin margins on product they might be buying from local markets that means they cannot bring out the best deals to the customers. As a result, the recent trend shows that discounts offered from Sellers are becoming smaller by the day besides logistics charges incurred are recovered in full. The product listings, prices are also mostly outdated due largely to lack of knowledge and the time to handle customers keep them overall low-rated.

Whereas, the Manufacturers or large Distributors who were seen sitting on fences have become active and they have been offering still better terms or discounts on their exclusive products on their stand-alone websites. Birla’s abof.com, Tata’s croma.com, Biyani’s Big Bazar are few example under inventory-led model which may disrupt the online market. Many others like booknest.in and bookadda.com have placed themselves strongly in online bookstore, a segment now no longer a priority for the top 3 e-commerce players in India.

There is a growing pressure from investors for the marketplace players to cut their losses and turn profitable soon. As a result, the discounts are likely to get reduced further in the coming months and years. Globally, marketplace pricing strategy have rationalized in an average of 5-7 years and the maximum discounts are usually restricted to 15-20% as anything beyond this is practically unsustainable.

There is a myth that by offering greater discounts and freebees, the marketplace would gain customer loyalty and retain their customers for longer periods. My belief is that consumers in India are price-sensitive and exploring continuously more value for their money. The Inventory-led websites could thus be able to match or offer better discounts on their products. This may consequently lead to disintermediation of consumers to these websites.

Almost all e-commerce players are on the verge of re-discovering their business models and aspire to become profitable sooner. The fact is, none have been able to see a penny in profit so far. Many big and promising e-commerce and unicorn players have perished due to unsustainable losses and many have been sold out to others. Year 2017 would see many more to fasten belts and pursue to solve this riddle lest they perish in the race to the survival of the fittest.

Today’s book review article is about book on Banking & Financial Awareness subject, which is top in fetching marks and help you score high and qualify the coveted Banking exams. I am going to talk about Handbook on Banking Awareness book released by IBC Academy Publication, which is a must have book for the serious candidates who wish to cover many important subjects with comprehensive coverage and virtually no error in content or typing.

Handbook on Banking Awareness

Aspirants for a career in the banking sector have to sit for job recruitment exams conducted by the IBPS or individual banks. Whether they are taking Bank PO or Clerical post exams, candidates are expected to possess good knowledge of the sector.

Recently, the emphasis of the exams has been shifting to focus more on the aspirant’s knowledge of the financial sector, with special reference to the banking field. So, books like Handbook On Banking Awareness can help candidates acquire good knowledge of the functioning of banks. The book is divided into various sections covering fundamental concepts related to banking and finance. The book focuses on the Indian Banking Sector, Financial Markets, Financial Products & Services, and Currency and Note-Issuing Policies.

The Objective Type Questions section contains a set of 52 papers comprising of 1050 Multiple Choice Questions. This help the candidates prepare for all the different bank exams conducted by the IBPS and various institutions like RBI and SBI. The coverage of the study material is exhaustive.

The Book is written in a clear and lucid style, focusing on the important points and concepts that candidates need to understand in order to get a good score in the exam. The text also includes short notes sections which help the candidates do a quick review of concepts.

About Author

N. K. Gupta is an experienced Banking Sector professional with over 26 years of experience. He has also written other books like Handbook on Marketing Awareness , Handbook On computer Awareness , Cracking the Job Interviews… and many more.

N. K. Gupta is a management graduate. He is a senior banker with over two and a half decades of experience working in the industry. He started his career as a Probationary Officer in the State Bank Group.

About IBC Academy

IBC Academy Publications books are rich in content and quality and updated periodically, to ensure that the candidates get the top quality book which make them succeed in coveted competitive exams. In addition, the books also contain an exhaustive 1000 to 1150 plus Multiple choice questions, on the pattern of various exams. conducted by the Banking & Financial sector Institutions.

Reading is a healthy habit, which not only improve your mental faculty but helps you in many other ways in your day-to-day life. Some feels that reading helps them score well academically and to get higher marks in exams., some gets a habit to read to help keep them busy and entertain themselves. While, for some it is therapeutically soothing as it helps their mental faculty strong and prevent disease like Alzheimer.

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light. –Vera Nazarian

Reading is one of the most fundamental skills a child needs to learn to succeed in life. Developing good reading habits is vital to your child’s future not just academically, but in everyday life as well. What can good reading habits do for your child’s development? Buy books online… it’s cheap.

Here are five good reasons you should develop reading habits:

Good reading habits prepare students excel academically: Students who spend a lot of time reading, prior to attending school or colleges will surely have an easier time adapting to the reading-focused learning environment in their classrooms.

Reading develops vocabulary: The more you read, the more new words will find their way into your vocabulary. Reading good books exposes you to words and phrases that you might not use as part of normal speech. If you remain sensitive and alert, it would surely expand your vocabulary and expand your horizon as how to use these new words into sentences, while you talk or debate as well as use these in your next essay or article.

Reading increases attention span: Encouraging good reading habits from an early age develops your child’s attention span and allows them to focus better and for longer periods of time. Reading combats the epidemic of poor attention span in today’s children.

Reading develops your thirst for knowledge: Good reading habits enable one to learn more about the world around them, appreciate the beauty and secrets of nature, find scientific and logical explanations to your doubts. It helps you develop an interest in other cultures and society. Reading leads to asking questions, and seeking answers, which means you learn more every day.

Developing reading habits early leads to a lifelong love of books: Those who start reading regularly from an early age are more likely to enjoy reading later in life. This not only help them well throughout their education and career but beyond to develop their personality and intellect to a greater level.

Gifting books of their interest, be it a comic, fiction, spiritual, cookery or a yoga book

Ensure that they finish one book at least in a month

Encourage them to speak a few words about what they have read and learnt new recently

Encourage them to gift the book to someone unfortunate who cannot afford to buy these. This would spread the reading worm.

“Read what you find interesting, and then follow your interests. You’ll find that in doing so you always generate enough to illuminate the next step.”
― Mark Helprin

Buying books online has become so convenient these days with online webstores, which offers so many choices and great discounts. You do not have to navigate your way to a book store, share the burden of parking your vehicle half-a-mile away, choose among the limited variety of books and compromise with your choices. Simply log on to booknest.in and start exploring your world of happiness.

Lower prices and better deals than the physical stores are among the top reasons for people to shop online, followed by 24X7 shopping experience, said the report based on a global survey of 19 countries on shopping behaviour. The fact though is, price is the single biggest reason for consumers to choose shopping with a retailer, whether online or offline, said the report.

Online shopping growth is projected to increase by 350% during peak festival seasons resulting in plummeting footfalls in brick-and-mortar retail shops, according to an October 2014 survey by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham). The report had estimated Diwali sales online to be over Rs.10,000 crore in 2015, and this is likely to increase to Rs.1 trillion in the next four years.Likewise, online events like the “Great Online Shopping Festival” and Flipkart’s “Big Billion Day” have generated huge sales. For instance, the “Big Billion Day” sale crossed revenue of $100 million in 10 hours, Flipkart claimed, according to the report.

Selling for a Loss

While the top three e-commerce players, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, posted a massive combined loss of Rs 4,984 crore, their revenue growth outpaced the growth in losses. These companies, which are often seen as th
e torchbearers of India’s start-up sector, seem to moving slowly towards building sustainable businesses, but seem to be collecting mounting losses quarter by quarter every year.

Alibaba-backed digital payments and commerce platform Paytm posted a loss of Rs. 372 crore in the fiscal ended March 2015, compared to a profit of over Rs 5 crore the year before.The loss was on account of the Noida-based company’s entry into the e-commerce business, where intense competition with Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal has forced it to spend huge sums on marketing and customer acquisition.

What contributes to Losses

Market report reveal that Flipkart seems to have lost market share in FY15 and FY16, as Amazon and Snapdeal ramped up sales. We believe recent initiatives of the company such as adding sellers aggressively, greater focus on its logistics business and opening it for third-party business, and the introduction of new categories (Flipkart Nearby, second-hand goods) is intended to help it maintain its lead over its peers, as well as add new revenue streams,” wrote Kawaljeet Saluja and Garima Mishra in their report. But the recent reports indicate that most of these initiatives have received huge setbacks and Flipkart has withdrawn these new initiatives.

The report suggests that the massive rise in losses despite lack of revenue growth in the classifieds sector was because of high investment in employees, technology, as well as on advertising.

Unsustainable business model

All leading Indian e-commerce sites sell the same products and often from the same merchants to the same set of customers at the same price levels.

With no difference in merchandise, companies resort to varying the prices through discounting to attract shoppers, thus making the business unsustainable. Unless e-commerce firms start to differentiate their offerings significantly from each other, I do not see things improving.

The law of diminishing margin

At the other end of the spectrum are vertical specialty websites that sell only furniture, books, spectacles/sunglasses or women’s lingerie, but achieving scale is a problem. These could be good niche profitable opportunities. Though once the horizontal sites make a play for this business, pressure on margins will mount and vertical sites will always lose out on mass traffic.

All large e-retailers offer unbelievable high discounts, free delivery, COD facility and easy return options which contribute their respective share on mounting losses of these e-retailers. High discounts are a sort of subsidy by these e-retailers which induces customers to buy online with them. As a result, every transaction done on their web-portals result in incremental loss for them.

online-shopping-in-India

The path to profitability

Before we look at these steps, let me first clarify what I mean by profitability.

Profits mean net profits. After covering all costs,Not before anything. There is nothing called operational breakeven. Profitability is like pregnancy. Either you are. Or you are not. There is nothing in between.

“Operational breakeven” is just a euphemism for losses.

Loss making e-commerce businesses can drive towards profitability by either

pushing up gross margins or

reducing costs.

Given the frightening state of affairs (In 2014-15 , e-commerce losses seem to be in excess of Rs. 8,000 crores), these e-commerce players have to follow both strategy simultaneously to give themselves some chance of becoming profitable.

The path to generate profits for the company, is as follows:

Push up gross margins: The formula for generating gross margins is simple and straight, as –

Companies using any other method to calculate gross margins are only fooling themselves. Smart category teams must extract every single per cent available in the supply chain to meet this goal of improving gross margins. As a follow-through, discounts must be drastically reduced to the realistic level and no item should sell at negative gross margins.

Reduce or preferably stop Cash on Delivery (CoD): CoD is not only a pain to manage but also quite expensive for merchants and it eats away the profitability of the transaction. Though the convenience factor for customers with CoD option is greater for online shopping. In fact, e-commerce sites have only succeeded in moving millions of credit/debit card users who would have otherwise paid online,to pay by CoD mode. CoD payment option was an innovation by Indian e-commerce players to give comfort to customers to pay after receipt of products , especially buy books online in earlier days and gain confidence for online transactions. The market has now matured to a great extent and pre-paid orders have gained greater acceptability, and CoD option is best discontinued if online businesses have to improve their profitability.

Slash headcount : A simple rule when you decide to let go of people is to cut deep. Small cuts never help. If you cut workforce by 10 per cent, the remaining 90 per cent is insecure, worried, unproductive, and typically another cut of 25 per cent will shortly follow making things worse. Given the high manpower costs at some of these e-comm players, I foresee a cut in their workforce at least by 50 per cent in short term. This is inevitable and looks certain. If you are not sure which 50 per cent to remove, just let go of the other half. You don’t need them. The remaining team will deliver much better financial results.

Advertising, especially mass media expenses: Advertisement and Publicity expenses are one of the major factors affecting heavily on their profitability. It makes no sense to hire Bollywood celebrities to peddle deeply discounted, me-too, no/low-margin items through front page print ads and TV commercials. We see quite often one or two full page classified advertisement on Daily Newspapers, which must have cost a bomb. I often wonder if such huge costs are sustainable. Instead, it would be prudent to continue to invest significantly in digital advertising.

Rationalize Logistics expenses: An e-commerce player is heavily dependent on Logistics service providers for timely delivery and cost-effective solution for them. They need to be dependent greatly on logistic service providers. The performance of Logistics service provider will determine the goodwill they create with their customer. Mostly, the charges payable to these Logistics players are much higher than an e-commerce player recovers from the customer. Many players follow Free Logistics and absorb the costs and thus this becomes a greater burden on the business model rendering the business model unsustainable. Efforts must be made to achieve cost neutral so far as logistics charges are concerned.

Today’s book review article is about General Knowledge book. I am going to talk about General Knowledge book released by IBC Academy Publication, which is a must have book for the serious candidates who wish to cover many important subjects with comprehensive coverage and virtually no error in content or typing.

The book is known by a distinct name :Handbook on General Awareness to help this stand apart from the horde of GK books published by many Publishers. I have recommended this book for almost every competitive exam having static GK content, despite the fact that there are hundreds of GK books in the market.

The most important reason I keep suggesting this GK book is that – the book is compiled by a Senior Ex-banker with a team of Expert which ensure that the content is top quality and just suit your requirements. Second, most other Publishers have been just copy pasted the content and takes content from many other popular books. This is not the case with Handbook on General Awareness.

You would find that the presentation of the book and the coverage of the General Knowledge Study Material is exhaustive and rich. This is the FIRST book on GK which started covering an exhaustive chapter on Economics which is most sought after for banking, insurance and other competitive exams. these days.

To make you appreciate better, I shall first show some of the quality features of this book and in second part we will cover how this book helps you in your GK preparation for your competition exam.

So let’s take a peek into the book features…

Features of the Book:Handbook on General Awareness

Handbook on General Awareness

Coverage of topics are very significant feature of this book. Not all the GK books which are printed in colour and looks bulky may have contemporary and relevant topics covered. The book covers all important topics in most comprehensive manner to ensure that you get a complete GK book.

The book also has a chapter with 1000 MCQs, containing the most frequently asked questions which keeps you ready for the forthcoming exams. No other GK book in similar category has such collection.

CHAPTER -11 : MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS (MCQs)

(A) Subject-Wise Chapters: Each part can be considered as an individual chapter, as there is not internal sub-divisions. As there are only ten chapters and that too in subject-wise format and almost all the topics of static GK are covered in this book. However, for Current Affairs topics, you shall have to prepare these from the magazines and Newspapers.

(B)Internal Division of Subjects: Some of the topics are divided according to the requirement of the subject, such as – Indian History is divided into 4 parts i.e. Ancient India, Medieval India, Modern India and Miscellaneous. Similarly, World History is divided into – Ancient World, Medieval World, Modern World and Miscellaneous.And it is very important to have these separations to have a better understanding of the topics. It increases efficiency of your GK preparation.

(D) Abbreviations: Sometimes you come across a word whose dictionary meaning doesn’t match the context of the subject. And this will not give you any trouble in this book as it has Abbreviations given at the end of the book.

The book is reviewed and updated periodically by the Expert Team and new edition released so that you always get contemporary and updated content. Unlike many who go for print-runs again and again of the same stale content.

Price: The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 235.

Hindi Edition of the Book :

IBC Academy Publications also comes with Hindi edition of the Book by the name of “Samanya Gyan Darpan”. This book has similar content in Hindi excepting that 1000 MCQs are not available. The Book is competitively priced at Rs. 200.

Samanya Gyan Darpan

These books on GK are available all over India with leading booksellers and are also sold online with all leading websites, but you get the most attractive prices on www.booknest.in

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